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by WahlBuilder



Series: 30 days of rarepairs [18]
Category: Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Intersex Astartes, M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 04:28:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15922871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: Gammadin is still unbonded after the loss of his beloved, and he's tired of younglings dying for him.





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**Author's Note:**

> Characters are from ‘Blood Gorgons’ by Henry Zou. If you can get your hands on this novel and/or the whole trilogy (‘Blood Gorgons’ omnibus or the three novels: ‘Emperor's Mercy’, ‘Flesh and Iron’ and ‘Blood Gorgons’; ‘Flesh and Iron’ has a strong anti-war message), read it. It’s good.  
> It’s probably the closest we’d ever get to Full Homo in Warham40k. McNeill would have been proud.

Gammadin was resting in the main hall of his citadel. _Cauldron Born_ was murmuring in the back of his mind, probing, enquiring.

He was supposed to be elsewhere—at the arena connected to his citadel by a bridge, suspended over the abyss on thick chains. His young kindred fighting there. Fighting for the right—he couldn’t call it privilege—of bonding with him.

It was just a chore by now, useless: one of them would overcome other contenders and come to him and they would lie on slabs in slumber while their organs and blood were being swapped. (Gammadin always dreamt of Monomachus’s laughter in that medically-induced slumber.) And then maybe a day later, maybe two or seven, the newly-bonded kindred would die in pain.

Gammadin was considering an order to make them stop. It could become a blow to the morale: he had been the first bonded, once, setting an example. But the price was too high. He would remain unbonded forever—or rather, forever bonded to a dead man. It didn’t matter that Monomachus had been transformed beyond reason, that he had lost himself. Didn’t matter that Gammadin had said that Monomachus’s fall had been a shame—it hadn’t been. The one who bore the shame and the guilt was Gammadin himself. He had failed his bondmate, his love of four hundred years.

He would never fail anyone else like that. The taint was in him, not in those young hopefuls.

The shame of being unbonded was a necessary price, because he couldn’t keep killing the best of his kindred with his grief and his guilt.

Gammadin got up from his throne (not looking at the other throne beside him, for-ever empty), and made one step—when the doors to the hall opened with a loud bang, hitting the walls with such a force that a crack ran through one of the leaves.

Gammadin sighed, eyeing the intruder.

Sabtah was a promising warrior, young but not callow anymore—and still unbonded. Gammadin knew the story circulating about: upon waking after his last augmentation, Sabtah had said that he would bond to their Khorsaad, and nobody else. Elders had laughed at his youthful enthusiasm and ambition—but he had kept on without bonding. Gammadin would have given him a Company—but he was unbounded, and so could not lead. (Could Gammadin himself?..)

Sabtah was looking at Gammadin, chest rising and falling with powerful breaths, his body gleaming with sweat and oil, speckled with blood here and there.

Gammadin had forbidden weapons and killing in his arena right from the start: he didn’t want more kindred deaths. To step into that arena was enough proof of one’s bravery. If nothing else, he used it to find potential candidates for leadership positions. Some bondmates found each other after having beaten each other in their attempt to become his.

Sabtah caught his breath and drew up to his full height, dark eyes blazing. The tight rings of his beard, cut short, were oiled, too. ‘I won, Khorsaad!’

‘I knew you would, one day,’ Gammadin replied. He turned to the trophy wall, considering which of the xenos weapons he could give Sabtah as an apology gift.

He was forever bonded to death, and he didn’t want his best younglings to die.

‘I won! Why won’t you look at me?’

Gammadin did look when Sabtah padded closer. He was barefoot, and the short leather skirt didn’t hide the effect the fighting had had on him.

Younglings.

‘I won’t have you,’ Gammadin told him.

Sabtah’s face shifted into such a wounded expression that Gammadin regretted putting it that way. Then fire blazed in Sabtah’s dark eyes again, his barrel chest rising and falling fast. ‘Why? Am I not good enough?’

Gammadin turned to him fully, keeping his hands behind his back. ‘You are good, and not only in combat, Sabtah. But I won’t have you, or anyone else.’

‘Because you still love _him_!’ Sabtah’s voice rang in the hall.

Gammadin felt his face turning into stone. ‘Because,’ he kept his voice quiet, ‘those who attempt a bond with me die.’

He saw Sabtah’s intention in his eyes before even hearing his roar. Sabtah was bigger than average, young as he was,—but Gammadin had never quite stopped growing. (Monomachus had been so much shorter, smaller, faster. Quiet with others, light when the two of them were alone. Laughing.)

Gammadin used Sabtah’s momentum and mass against him, throwing him down. But Gammadin wasn’t dressed for a wrestling match—and Sabtah yanked on his robes, the fabric tearing. It distracted Gammadin momentarily—enough of an opening for Sabtah. The youngling kicked his legs from under him, and rolled onto him, straddling his waist, pinning his wrists with both hands by his head.

Gammadin wasn’t winded, but his hearts were racing. He had forgotten how it felt, to mess with someone like this. (On the floor in the main hall, where anyone could—)

He realised he hadn’t left his citadel (his and Monomachus’s, once) for three years, and _Cauldron_ helpfully confirmed it.

**we like this boy**

_‘Shut up,’_ Gammadin thought the ship’s way, and it only laughed.

Sabtah was boring holes in his skull with his eyes. His scent was heavy (heavier than Monomachus’s): musk, blood, steel, fragrant oil. Something zesty. Orange oil. Rose. Mint. The thin cotton of Gammadin’s torn robes was being soaked through where Sabtah was straddling him, Sabtah’s thick thighs straining.

Younglings.

(Monomachus had born a child to him, and Gammadin had teased him that after giving birth both of them had had a softness about their bodies now.

Their child had died in a raid on the Night Lords warband only fifty years later.)

Sabtah’s black brows were tangled, and they rose, giving his face a pleading brittleness. ‘Let me in, Khorsaad.’ His booming voice was soft. There was a scar running across his abdomen.

Gammadin could break from his hold. He didn’t want to. He wanted them all to leave him in his grief for a thousand years.

‘You will die,’ he said just as softly. ‘There are many who would gladly bond with you.’

‘I don’t want others.’

Gammadin rolled his head to the side, watching the circle of Sabtah’s fingers over his wrist. ‘And what do you want?’

‘I want you to let yourself heal.’

Gammadin startled. Sabtah released one of his wrists, the one he was looking at, and instead threaded his fingers through Gammadin’s—and Gammadin closed his fingers over Sabtah’s in turn and looked at the youngling.

Sabtah folded down over him, shifting his weight onto him. ‘You are not betraying him if you bond with someone else,’ Sabtah whispered into his neck. His beard was surprisingly soft.

Gammadin freed his other hand and put it on Sabtah’s back, stroking down slowly. ‘You will die.

‘I won’t. I promise. You won’t lose me. Let me share your pain, Gammadin.’

Gammadin closed his eyes.

(Monomachus. Beloved.)

‘Yes.’

**Author's Note:**

> Cauldron Born is the living ship of the Blood Gorgons, connected to Gammadin in an arcane way. It’s so huge that bonded pairs have separate fortresses within it (it’s eight kilometers long, I think?).  
> ‘Khorsaad’ is Gammadin’s title.  
> Gammadin and Monomachus had been together for four centuries. Gammadin and Sabtah—3600+ years. That’s Marriage Goals.  
> I took some liberties with the canon: it is stated that aspirants died in attempts to bond with Gammadin, but since the word “aspirants” isn’t capitalised as it usually is, I took it simply as meaning “Gorgons aspiring to become Gammadin’s bond” and not the usual “humans who are not even Astartes”. Artistic licence.  
> Gammadin is a Lorge Boi, and in one scene in the novel Sabtah wears a kilt made of chains. And nothing else. Fashion Goals.


End file.
